Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is a Brooklyn and Philadelphia based indie-rock band consisting of Alec Ounsworth, Lee Sargent, Robbie Guertin, Tyler Sargent, and Sean Greenhalgh. All the band members attended Connecticut College, in New London, Connecticut, United States Their debut album, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, recorded by Adam Lasus (Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo/The Dirt of Luck), was self-released in 2005, receiving attention from numerous MP3 blogs and a favorable review from Pitchfork Media, who gave the band a "Best New Music" commendation.

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11 March 2009

Clap Your Hands Give Away Music!

Despite persistent rumours that the band have or are about to split, the forgotten men of alt.rock Clap Your Hands Say Yeah have debuted a brand new track `Statues` ahead of what may be a third album.

The track can be downloaded via Snobs Music, meanwhile the band play a show in their native Brooklyn, NY on Friday with Chairlift in support.

Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah rocketed to some degree of stardom in 2005 with their self-titled debut album with fans as enamoured with their DIY ethic (the band originally sold the disc themselves through mail order) as they were with their trailblazing alternative rock.

However, Brooklyn Vegan suggests the band may be about to play their final ever gig on February 13th. The article reads:

"The rumor is that they`ve nixed plans to go back into the studio, and that they have no further dates scheduled. I`m not saying I`m 100% positive this is the last we`ll see of them, but it seems likely the show will be the last chance to see them for a very long time, if not ever."

Perhaps the final nail in the CHYSY coffin comes from an anonymous commenter who simply states "does someone out there still give a fuck about these guys?"

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah? will play a number of dates across the pond between September 16th and October 21st but with one unique twist - each gig will fall on a Tuesday. Quite why this should be we aren`t sure but we`re pretty sure it has nothing to do with a love of the Boomtown Rats (`I Don`t Like Mondays`) or Radiohead who used to be known as On a Friday.

It`s more likely to do with the fact that albums are traditionally released on a Tuesday in the States, rather than the more conventional Monday in the UK. Which reminds me...the band are also hard at work on the follow up to last year`s pretty disappointing `Some Loud Thunder` LP which we hope will sound more like their monumental self-titled debut this time round.

The new album from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, 'Some Loud Thunder', is now available to stream in its entirity from their MySpace.

The album is released officially through Wichita on 29th January, but it can be downloaded through their official website (in conjunction with InSound) now for a mere $13 (that's less than seven quid last I looked). You're not only buying digital either as you'll be sent a CD copy too. Also, you'll be able to order a nifty CYHSY t-shirt at the same time for $10, so you'll look good while listening.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah,The band with the coolest name in music (yeah Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, stick that in your emo trousers!) are back in January with new album 'Some Loud Thunder' and the lovely chaps have made a couple of tracks available on their website.

'Love Song No.7' is a spectral, exsanguinous, yet strangely potent psychoballad - the type the Guillemots would sell their rather boring trousers for. While 'Underwater (You and Me)' is the punchy pop sound of The Flaming Lips and Doves living it up and laughing maniacally as the farmer's barn burns behind them...probably.

Full tracklisting for Some Loud Thunder

1. Some Loud Thunder
2. Emily Jean Stock
3. Mama, Won’t You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning?
4. Love Song No. 7
5. Satan Said Dance
6. Upon Encountering the Crippled Elephant
7. Goodbye to Mother and the Cove
8. Arm and Hammer
9. Yankee Go Home
10. Underwater (You and Me)
11. Five Easy Pieces

The excellent Clap Your Hands Say Yeah will return with their second album in January according to an interview with Lee Sargent on Pitchfork.

The album will be produced by Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann and will, according to Sargent, be "an entirely different thing from the first one" and the "arrangements are more complex." Which all sounds rather good.

"Working with Fridmann was awesome" recounts Sargent, "He`s just really good at coloring the songs, and his production is unique-- he makes things really sort of gritty, but in a nice way. He has really tasteful approaches to adding little things here and there, and just...fills out the songs."

The album will be released in the UK on the Wichita label early next year.

Alec Ounsworth has a voice like whisky. Let me explain, remember the first time you had a sip of whisky...horrible wasn't it? That's the impression you may have of his voice when you first hear a record by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, it's one you need to grow to love. Two or three listens should do it, and it's a pleasant nurturing period when it's accompanied by jangly, melodic pop as featured on 'In This Home on Ice'. I've been listening to the album on a loop for months now, getting drunk on the voice of Ounsworth and now tipsily give this my record of the week.

CYHSY are tipped for great things, and not just because they have the best name I`ve heard in ages. Despite not sounding hugely like the Arcade Fire, I can see them making the same impact as Montreal`s finest in 2006. Lead singer Alec Ounsworth has a unique voice which, while initially grating, is one I`m growing to love...a kind of cross between a Wayne Coyne wail and a Black Francis yelp. If you haven`t tracked down music by this band yet then get off your arse and do so.

In an almost insultingly early slot, The Long Blondes shine like the stars they continue to promise to be in their Reading debut slot. Like their main influences, Pulp (none more so than on the largely spoken-word duet 'Long Blonde'), the main ingredient is sex from Kate's trademark wiggle to the seedy lyrics of the shaggingly cosmic new single 'Once and Never Again'.

Over in the alarmingly small Carling tent, are Yankee Britpoppers (if such a thing can exist) Scissors for Lefty. There's is a strong set of gallant guitar pop featuring not only a long, gazing serenade of the audience from eye level by singer Bryan but also an outing of one of three piano solos he recently learned in Manchester! New single 'Mama Your Boys Will Find A Home' has every southpaw in the tent clapping along and high-fiving (on the left hand side, naturally).

The manic, the crazy Gogol Bordello are late arriving on the NME stage and the huge tent has literally filled following hype surrounding the weekend's biggest word of mouth treat. When the band arrive and launch straight into their trademark sound of Ukrainian gypsy folk and hard, hard punk rock. Just before signature tune 'Start Wearing Purple', Eugene Hutz whips off his kecks to reveal scarlet (not quite purple) pants and starts flapping around cossacking as if his life depended upon it. If the Clash had formed in Kiev rather than seedy London squats we'd all be hailing Joe Strumchenko and his magnificent red underpants. A truly memorable festival performance and barely an audible mention of shhh-Levellers.

Oh My God I Can't Believe It shouts one punter as she realises the Kaiser Chiefs are not headlining the main stage today. However, their runners-up slot gives them a chance to resurrect last year's glorious festival performances which helped them make their name (to a considerably drunker audience), and treat us to some great new songs. It's the old singles that really hit tonight though, each decorated with a smattering of the soon-to-be-lesser-spotted 'wooooah', each accompanied by Ricky Wilson's choreographed-by-an-epileptic dancing and some with very special guest vocallists ('Modern Way' with Ryan from the Cribs, and 'Oh My God' with the entire crowd!) With the band's second album on the way, expect to see them step up to headliners for next year.

But that position tonight is held by the hardest working band in Scotland, Franz Ferdinand, the climax of three years slog that has seen them rise from playing Glasgow warehouses flanked by gurning revellers to a field in Berkshire to thousands...and flanked by giant, animatronic, can-canning mannequins. Crashing straight into a frenetic 'Michael', the band show that they've lost none of their live energy and that, while he may spend much of his time relating recipes these days, Alex Kapranos is still one of the most exciting frontmen around. Not even the arrival of rain can dampen the spirits or the dancing feet of Reading as rapturous receptions to Der Greatest Hits Auf Franz follow one by one. 'Do You Want To' is one of the biggest sing-a-longs of the day, 'Walk Away' a hands-in-the-air epic and 'Take Me Out' every inch the anthem it always has been. The best moment, as always, is the increasing number of drummers who join the band for the encore performance of recent album-closer 'Outsiders'. Tonight, the 'ten drummers drumming' include Ricky and Nick Kaiser, Screech from the Long Blondes and, if reports are to be believed, the legendary Woody from Madness. It's the perfect way to finish the first day of the festival, legs fresh enough to dance...and boy, I'd defy you not to have!

SATURDAY

In a world in which My Bloody Valentine have ceased to be relevant due to their own inactivity, it's a pleasure to welcome Serena-Maneesh and their MBV tribute to the Carling tent for a performance whose intimacy is only matched by it's effortless beauty. The band's new album is showcased, shoes are gazed at and at the end, for what seems like an hour, the two frontmen hammer their instruments - frantically wringing ever morsel of sound out of them.

Perhaps fighting the size of the NME tent are Be Your Own Pet, Nashville's greatest teen punk-shout-punk band. This afternoon the band deliver the same tight, spiky set as you may have been lucky to have caught over the last year or so, but the intimacy of their usually very small crowds is missing and it looks like many have stumbled in trying to escape the sound of The Cribs on the main stage. Finishing well before I expected them too without having played the incredible Buzzcocks tribute 'Fire Department' didn't sit too well with me, but a rapturous 'Adventure' atoned admirably and led a mini-rush for the stage from those in situ who 'get them'.

Massive favourites of Culturdeluxe, the Spinto Band, have unfortunately been booked alongside those most excellent indie journeymen The Fall, so reluctantly I strap a kazoo on and check out the former. After all, 'Nice and Nicely Done' has been one of my favourite records of this year and what has Mark E Smith ever done for me, eh? I am rewarded with one of the sets of the weekend as the six-man Spintos fire through recent singles 'Did I Tell You', 'Direct to Helmet', 'Brown Boxes' (complete with kazoos, yet strangely abridged?) and the recent (CDX) smash 'Oh Mandy'. The on-stage chemistry is unsurprising for a band who've already spent so much of their young lives together and a quick glance around the completely full tent reveals smiles all round. So I still have time to catch the end of The Fall...where they any good? Well, by the sound of their final tune, ruddy marvellous...still, you can't accompany that on a kazoo...oh, you can.

In fact, Kazoos are surely also welcomed by the immense Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, the band following The Fall and, with a yelping Alex Ounsworth on finest terrier form, one of today's highlights. Tracks such as 'Is This Love?', 'In This Home on Ice' and 'Upon this Tidal Wave of Young Blood'are greatly appreciated by a mid-sized crowd. Mid-sized is not how you describe an Arctic Monkeys crowd, however. With new bassist Nick making his festival debut and absolutely no expense spent on their light show (yes, the Monkeys don't need gimmicks) the band launch into their best known material early with a particularly well-received run out for former number one '...Dancefloor'. By the time they've finished with 'A Certain Romance' via, most enjoyably, a rare appearance of 'Bigger Boys and Stolen Sweethearts', the huge crowd retire, rather hoarse of voice from having accompanied Alex Turner on every poetic syllable.

With their massive success, many had touted the Monkeys to headline the entire festival, but not when Muse are in town. Consistently voted the best live act in Britain - it's easy to see why with an amazing light show and the confidence to debut with the epic 'Knights of Cydonia'. Listening to Muse, even as a partizan, you forget just how many of their songs you know. You forget just how exciting Matt Bellamy can sound mid-piercing scream. You even allow yourself to be amazed by streams of fire, lasers and a light show more at home with such dinosaurs as Yes, Frampton or the Floyd. Muse pull off the most spectacular show tonight with absolutely no (black) holes and a setfull of revelations.

SUNDAY

The day starts with massive disappointment as Kharma 45 have failed to turn up. This band, the future of rock n roll don't you know, should have been one of the highlights. As it is, we must turn to the art-disco-punk of Glasgow's Shitdisco in the dance tent (thankfully taking over from the sea of black that was the R1 Lockup stage for the previous two days). Shitdisco have unfairly been lumped into the non-existant new rave scene, their music bears no relation to rave old skool or new, but it does make you dance. Tunes such as 'I Know Kung Fu', 'Discoblood' and set closing new track 'Reactor Party' provide enough DFA-esque punk-funk electro-disco to instill a need to dance like your shoes are on fire...and if they are, then so much the better.

Similarly lumped into the new rave scene are The Klaxons, they're quickly enjoying an Arctic Monkeys shaped slice of hype and, with a comedy rave cover of Kicks Like A Mule's 'The Bouncer' kicking things off, quite rightly so. It's standing room only outside a tent which appears to be housing a mini riot as the band kick into recent success 'Atlantis to Interzone'. Another cover of Grace's 'Not Over Yet' and a triumphant 'Gravity's Rainbow' are the remaining highlights on a very short, but frenetic set. Watch these boys ascend to a much higher position next year...or watch them disappear in a puff of green smoke from a discarded glo-stick.

Sunday at Reading is very heavy on the rock and with the Main Stage hosting identikit rock and emo bands (and a very disappointing Slayer) it's up to the dance tent to provide the rest of the evening's entertainment. So, it's over to Soulwax whose Nite Versions have a crowd of people frugging and remembering just how much they 'fucking love that Funky Town song'. The group merge into tonight's headliners 2 Many DJs without fanfare and a series of the most unlikely treats collide with tracks such as 'La Rock 01' from Vitalic who had performed earlier. While Pearl Jam bored the rest of the festival on the Main Stage, those of us who still had enough energy danced our little arses off. Better than having it bored off, eh Eddie?

Nick's Roundup

Kaiser Chiefs – Friday Main Stage

I was fortunate to see the Kaiser Chiefs at last years Glastonbury where they were in danger of being upstaged by a very large inflatable, green dinosaur. No dinosaur this time but also no real change from the Chiefs either. The set consisted mainly of songs off the LP with a couple of b-sides thrown in, all delivered with plenty of enthusiasm, energy and fun but unfortunately I had the feeling that I had seen it all before (which I had, last year at an earlier time at a different festival). It may be time for the Kaiser Chiefs to lay low until the new album surfaces for although they are a great band, they do run the risk of turning stale due to over familiarity.

Aiden – Saturday Main Stage

Aiden’s singer likes to swear (he also likes to set his friends on fire - Ed). He manages to fucking put a fucking swear word after almost every fucking word that he fucking say’s. Well thank fuck that they turn out to be quite a fun distraction first thing on a Saturday morning. Ok the music’s quite derivative, American rocky/punky type stuff, but they all do move around a lot which means they become quite a difficult target for the bottlers who seem to want to use them as practice for when My Chemical Romance play on Sunday.

Flogging Molly – Saturday Main Stage

OK it’s early on Saturday afternoon, the first band have come and gone, it’s now time to liven the crowd up with a bit a oirish diddly punk. Trust me, there is a Floggin Molly type band early on Saturday at every festival bill. They arrive, liven up the crowd then piss off again. Job done and then you’ll never hear of them again ……. ‘til next year that is.

Wolfmother - Saturday Main Stage

Things start looking up on Saturday when the first major band of the day arrive in the form of new rock gods Wolfmother. If you are not aware of the mighty mother then imagine a composite of every great 70’s rock band you can think of and you wont be far off the mark. Riffs stolen from Deep Purple, check, vocals courtesy of Ozzy at his best, check, Afro hair style borrowed from the MC 5, check and double check. They are so close to the experience of seeing a great but now defunct classic 7o’s rock band they’ve almost become Spinal Tapeqse in their delivery. Starting with a storming version of Another Dimension, WM then carry on to deliver a absolutely cracking set with Mother (the new single) being another particular highlight. Great sound, great hair, great band.

The Fall – Saturday NME Stage

Unfortunately I only managed to catch about three songs of the Fall but I can happily report that from what I did see, Mark E Smith is still in splendid form (although a small table with a bottle of whisky and tumbler that he could have sipped from between songs would have strangely seemed appropriate). Lets face it, Mark E and The Fall are never going to have a Morrisey type resurgence in popularity but just having them around somehow seems right and proper.

The Streets – Saturday Main Stage

After Feeder had been all “Feeder like” on the main stage our first genuine surprise of the weekend came in the form of Mr Mike Skinner and The Streets. The Streets are now becoming regulars on the festival circuit and the experience shows. They play a very lean and mean best of set, including quite a few numbers from the first LP but surprisingly very few from the latest, which manages to rolls from one song to another almost seamlessly, held together by Mr Skinners witty and engaging banter. They end with Dry your Eye’s and Fit but don’t you know it but not before we’ve witness a naked male human pyramid and taken part in the largest “getting low” event (if you were there then you’d know) ever staged in a festival. Brilliant.

Boy Kill Boy - Sunday NME Stage

There s a very respectable turn out for BKB but not half as large as the crowd that comes later for the more inferior Kooks who follow.This puzzles me as BKB are such a great band who in some way remind me of the legendary Teardrop Explodes.
They play their three singles to date (Civil Sin, Suzie and Back Again) in what seems like an extremely short but memorable set and the crowd love it. Main stage beckons for next year and no mistaking.